Macus
04-30-2007, 10:54 AM
Plot
Set in the year 2014, after an unexplained event (most likely a huge economic crash) many Japanese people are moving to main land China, one such settlement is the fictional city of Mallepa (it is noted that the movie was actually filmed in Taiwan)
In this city three young street urchins make their living by commiting petty theft, on one occasion as they attempted to steal a wrist watch from a man laying on the ground they find that he started to spontainiously combust in sunlight, rather than be afraid of this super freaky person the leader of the three boys Sho drags the mysterious man in to the shadows and to safty. The group of boys consisting of Sho, his older brother Shinji and their friend Toshi carry on their vagabond ways untill they steal a brifecase from a local ganster that contains a large amount of cash, the ganster gives chase and corners the boys in the abandond wherehouse where they dwell, all seems lost for the boys when the ganster shoots Shinji in the back of the leg, however the mysterious stranger then leaps into action by killing the gansgter and feasting on his blood yum!.
Once again rather than being afraid of this, Sho and Shinji accept the strangers Vamperic existance, and as they grow up with him to carry out yet more petty crimes as adults.
Now grown up Shinji after being shot in the leg now has a constant limp, and is also a drug user (believed to be for the pain) so now the main group to commit the crimes are Toshi, who works as a pizza delivery boy, he delivers drugged pizza’s to the gangsters and as they fall unconscious Sho now played as an adult by famous Japanese Rock star Gackt and his vampire friend Kei played by the equally famous Hyde enter the building to rob them, though this doesn’t all ways go the plan, leaving Sho to gun fight with the gangsters as Kei airily leaps from pillar to post telling Sho where to dodge the bullets, and occasionally fighting a gangster (as Kei seems to have a moral dilemma with eating people to live he only feeds on bad guys, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with his friends shooting up people so he cant be that morally ethic). The first scene of this sort offers a rather comedic scene where Sho goes into a fit of rage after his expensive white leather jacket gets a bullet hole in it, leaving Kei to say - “ahh, here we go again”.
While performing another robbery one night, they once again meet most of the gangsters awake and a third party, an enraged Taiwanese man having a gun battle with the gangsters (gangsters will now be referred to by “Yakuza”). The three of them are in a tight spot so agree to work together to kill off the Yakuza, after the battle (which hold one of the best scenes where Sho attempts to deliver a very flashy kung fu kick to finish his opponent but ultimately misses and lands on the floor clutching his ankle in pain) we learn that the Taiwanese man is called Son and attacked the Yakuza in revenge for the rape of his younger sister Yi-Che.
After this the group form a strong friendship and as they do Sho begins to experience romantic feelings for Yi-Che, but this matter is complicated as Yi-Che has feelings for Kei (bet you dident see that one coming). The tension created by the common romantic interest of Sho and Kei, two best friends, makes for “heart-wrenching anguish” Kei is unable to return Yi-Che’s feelings for him, as he is a vampire and a moody angsty one at that, though this is a rather good performance by first time actor Hyde.
At an unveiling of Yi-Che’s new wall mural Yakuza turn up seeking revenge on the group of friends (they still lead their life of crime against other criminals) and Toshi is kidnapped and eventually murdered by the Yakuza, Sho and Son attempt to fight them off but are unsuccessful until Kei shows up (bearing in mind it is daytime) and kills the Yakuza in revenge, but is however arrested by police for this and imprisoned at an undisclosed facility.
The movie once again skips ahead several years, now Sho a prominent Yakuza boss himself is married to Yi-Che and they have a young daughter. Son on the other hand has abandoned his friendship to join the Taiwanese Yakuza that Killed Toshi. On the news one day Sho see’s a report about Kei in prison describing him as “the modern day Vampire”, Sho some how manages to visit him and to hire a lawyer for him, Kei is mostly unresponsive and angsty as normal. Back in Mallepa Shinji is killed by Chan, the Taiwanese Yakuza who Son serves. Sho and Son go to see his body, and the brother in-laws argue ending with Sho threatening to kills all of Son’s family, conveniently forgetting that he is infact married to Son’s sister who also happens to be stood behind Sho (boo! bad Sho boo!), the fight climaxes when Sho draws his gun on Son and Yi-Che speaks for the fist time in the film (she was mute earlier in the film due to the traumatic rape by the Yakuza, who intern were subsequently killed by Sho and Son).
She manages to convince the brother in-laws to stop fighting, at least for now.
Again the film jumps ahead in time, where Yi-Che is in a hospital bed with a brain tumour it is revealed that she has little time left and under the tumour’s effect directs her Daughter Hana to greet Son as her Grand Father and Sho as Kei provoking painful realisations for Sho about his wife (bet you did see that one coming). With his brother dead and his wife dying, Sho again turns to his childhood friend, mentor and neighborhood vampire Kei, but his phone call reaches Kei while the vampire is on his way to death row and leaves Sho in greater despair, loneliness and angst oooh no!
Though as luck would have it, that phone call revives Kei’s will to live and he escapes from his captors and reterens to Sho’s side, as sho begs Kei to turn his wife into a vampire to spare her from death Kei refuses prompting another speech filled with angst and self loathing, saying he would rather Yi-Che die than be forced into being a vampire and claims Sho to be selfish for wanting such a thing. Sho then requests that Kei help him exact revenge on the Yakuza responsible for Shinji’s murder and Kei “reluctently” aggree’s to help.
The two head to the rundown warehouse where they met with the Yakuza and a “dazzling” firefight ensues against Chan's goons. It becomes obvious that Sho doesn't intend on surviving when he asks Kei to promise to watch over his daughter Hana. Predictably enough, Sho fights without regard to his own safety or that of his splended white trench coat, prompting painful and angsty protests from Kei. Finally, the pair meet up with Son, Sho considers him a traitor fro joinig the people who murderd Toshi, and he also seeks reveng for his brother Shinji because of this Sho traps Kei in a shadowy corner of the room by shooting holes in the cheeling drenching the battle ground in sunlight to stop him interfearing in the ensuing showdown of revenge, oooh drama.
Sho and Son battle till each man has only one Bullet left, now what are the chances eh?. The two men decide to have a good old fashiond dule, whith the survivor takeing care of Hana, as they pace away from each other and turn to fire, only one shot is heard as Sho deliberatly doesent fire and is fatealy wounded, as Son is left with the realiseation of his actions.
Meanwhile Chan is betrayed and killed by two of his underlings who then come across Kei stuck in his corner of woe and angst, they two flunkies shoot Kei repeatedly as Kei slumps seemingly dead the two Yakuza turn to walk away, unfortunatly for them Kei has the magical ability to heal super fast when its needed in the story line, and quickly turns to two men into Swiss Chese.
Upon Finding Sho in a clasic protagonist death pose and Son with the smoking gun, Son seems to have repented his actions but still raises his gun to Kei evena though he has no amunition left, Kei meerly shoots Son several times then rushes to his dying pal Sho. During a drama filled death sceen Sho raises a cinematic bloody hand while being cradeld by Kei, all the tension between them is forgotten and Kei is left with the sadnes off loseing his only friend as the lights dim on the sceen.
Once again time skips forward to an 18 yearold Hana unveiling a repainted version of her mother’s origonal mural, Kei like a proud father congratulats her, then promply dissmisses her by sending her off to be schooled abroad. Sho is then sceen standing infront of the repainted mural, unable to face the lonelyness and angst of his existance, he turnd Sho into a vampire, Sho who also couldent live with the woe, the angst and the depression of a vampire refused to let his daughter see him, and had Kei raise her instead fufilling his promise to Sho.
With all lose strings tied off (the film raises many posible plot points but never finishes them) Kei and Sho drive to the beach where the origonal groupe of frinds spent many a happy night takeing group photos, the two life weary blood suckers then comit the ulimate act of melodrama and angst by killing themselvs, then they meet all ther dead friends in the after life at the same beach as friends once again, awwwww.
Conclusion
Now we have the entire movie typed up its time to actually talk about it. Moon Child is a film that is hard to catagorize some might say it’s a Vampire film or a Sci Fi film, or an action film or a crime movie or an emotional film set to show the strife between friends and how they try to over come it, then again it could just be an excuse for fan girls (and fan boys) to drool over Hyde and Gackt on screen together which to be honest seems the most likely. The first part of the film apart from the occasional bady coreographed gunfight and smart remark from Hyde or Gackt is fairly dull, the plot is lose if it exists at all some belive it is the show the friend ship between the two main characters I personaly belive its simply to have Hyde and Gackt on screen together. The action sceens I mention arent really all that actiony, they revolve less around style and coolness and have more lound noise and fire spitting out of guns than anything else, Kei as a vampire of course has super powers and is able to doge bullets and kill bad guys with great ease but one wonders why Kei, an unkillable vampire hardly ever uses his powers for anything but occasionally dodging bullets and hopping from one place to another to look cool while his utterly mortal friends are being shot at from all sides, Anyway, the first hour is taken up with much gunplay, much pouting, manly wrestling on the beach and much gazing into middle distance contemplating the realities of unlife oooh more drama, also there is only about three vampire victims in the whole film how lame is that.
The film suffers from a low budget, which explains the crapy effects in the gun fights, but with massive Asian icons staring in the film you would think that more money would have been raised for it, then again as they are novice actors its not that much of a surprise. In short Moon Child is frankly boring which is a horrible crime considering its supposed to be a Vampire/action/crime movie, you never really care for the characters except for maybe Hyde and Gackt (and that’s manly their fans). Apart from Hyde’s character most of the other cast look silly in this film, Gackt does have one or two flashy outfits but his silly hair makes in look old beyond his years where as the 38 year old Hyde looks like a spry 23 year old. As a professional reviewer I’d have to say that Moon Child fails on so many levels, if you want an out and out feast of violence and blood then I suggest you watch Versus, if its suspense and thought provoking plot then watch Old Boy and if you want crazy undead Japanese rock stars then watch Wild Zero a film as bad as Moon Child but it has more comedy and silly violence. The fact is there are many Asian movies that beat Moon Child in every way possible except one and that is the fact that it has Hyde and Gackt in it, both are stupidly popular and any of their fans would easily look over the poor script, poor action, bad effects and even look over the fact that a romantic relationship between Hyde and Gackt’s characters is never even hinted at. All in all I’d give Moon Child a disappointing two out of ten as a movie, but as I mentioned the film has one wining aspect and that is its lead role’s and as a huge fan of Hyde I’m going to give this an eight out of ten. If you want to see a good Asian move then I strongly advise you look else where, there are countless awesome films from the orient but Moon Child just isn’t one of them, if you are a Hyde or Gackt fan and just want an excuse to see them on film and drool, then by all means watch this film but make sure not to judge all Asian cinema by its poor standards.
- macus
Set in the year 2014, after an unexplained event (most likely a huge economic crash) many Japanese people are moving to main land China, one such settlement is the fictional city of Mallepa (it is noted that the movie was actually filmed in Taiwan)
In this city three young street urchins make their living by commiting petty theft, on one occasion as they attempted to steal a wrist watch from a man laying on the ground they find that he started to spontainiously combust in sunlight, rather than be afraid of this super freaky person the leader of the three boys Sho drags the mysterious man in to the shadows and to safty. The group of boys consisting of Sho, his older brother Shinji and their friend Toshi carry on their vagabond ways untill they steal a brifecase from a local ganster that contains a large amount of cash, the ganster gives chase and corners the boys in the abandond wherehouse where they dwell, all seems lost for the boys when the ganster shoots Shinji in the back of the leg, however the mysterious stranger then leaps into action by killing the gansgter and feasting on his blood yum!.
Once again rather than being afraid of this, Sho and Shinji accept the strangers Vamperic existance, and as they grow up with him to carry out yet more petty crimes as adults.
Now grown up Shinji after being shot in the leg now has a constant limp, and is also a drug user (believed to be for the pain) so now the main group to commit the crimes are Toshi, who works as a pizza delivery boy, he delivers drugged pizza’s to the gangsters and as they fall unconscious Sho now played as an adult by famous Japanese Rock star Gackt and his vampire friend Kei played by the equally famous Hyde enter the building to rob them, though this doesn’t all ways go the plan, leaving Sho to gun fight with the gangsters as Kei airily leaps from pillar to post telling Sho where to dodge the bullets, and occasionally fighting a gangster (as Kei seems to have a moral dilemma with eating people to live he only feeds on bad guys, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with his friends shooting up people so he cant be that morally ethic). The first scene of this sort offers a rather comedic scene where Sho goes into a fit of rage after his expensive white leather jacket gets a bullet hole in it, leaving Kei to say - “ahh, here we go again”.
While performing another robbery one night, they once again meet most of the gangsters awake and a third party, an enraged Taiwanese man having a gun battle with the gangsters (gangsters will now be referred to by “Yakuza”). The three of them are in a tight spot so agree to work together to kill off the Yakuza, after the battle (which hold one of the best scenes where Sho attempts to deliver a very flashy kung fu kick to finish his opponent but ultimately misses and lands on the floor clutching his ankle in pain) we learn that the Taiwanese man is called Son and attacked the Yakuza in revenge for the rape of his younger sister Yi-Che.
After this the group form a strong friendship and as they do Sho begins to experience romantic feelings for Yi-Che, but this matter is complicated as Yi-Che has feelings for Kei (bet you dident see that one coming). The tension created by the common romantic interest of Sho and Kei, two best friends, makes for “heart-wrenching anguish” Kei is unable to return Yi-Che’s feelings for him, as he is a vampire and a moody angsty one at that, though this is a rather good performance by first time actor Hyde.
At an unveiling of Yi-Che’s new wall mural Yakuza turn up seeking revenge on the group of friends (they still lead their life of crime against other criminals) and Toshi is kidnapped and eventually murdered by the Yakuza, Sho and Son attempt to fight them off but are unsuccessful until Kei shows up (bearing in mind it is daytime) and kills the Yakuza in revenge, but is however arrested by police for this and imprisoned at an undisclosed facility.
The movie once again skips ahead several years, now Sho a prominent Yakuza boss himself is married to Yi-Che and they have a young daughter. Son on the other hand has abandoned his friendship to join the Taiwanese Yakuza that Killed Toshi. On the news one day Sho see’s a report about Kei in prison describing him as “the modern day Vampire”, Sho some how manages to visit him and to hire a lawyer for him, Kei is mostly unresponsive and angsty as normal. Back in Mallepa Shinji is killed by Chan, the Taiwanese Yakuza who Son serves. Sho and Son go to see his body, and the brother in-laws argue ending with Sho threatening to kills all of Son’s family, conveniently forgetting that he is infact married to Son’s sister who also happens to be stood behind Sho (boo! bad Sho boo!), the fight climaxes when Sho draws his gun on Son and Yi-Che speaks for the fist time in the film (she was mute earlier in the film due to the traumatic rape by the Yakuza, who intern were subsequently killed by Sho and Son).
She manages to convince the brother in-laws to stop fighting, at least for now.
Again the film jumps ahead in time, where Yi-Che is in a hospital bed with a brain tumour it is revealed that she has little time left and under the tumour’s effect directs her Daughter Hana to greet Son as her Grand Father and Sho as Kei provoking painful realisations for Sho about his wife (bet you did see that one coming). With his brother dead and his wife dying, Sho again turns to his childhood friend, mentor and neighborhood vampire Kei, but his phone call reaches Kei while the vampire is on his way to death row and leaves Sho in greater despair, loneliness and angst oooh no!
Though as luck would have it, that phone call revives Kei’s will to live and he escapes from his captors and reterens to Sho’s side, as sho begs Kei to turn his wife into a vampire to spare her from death Kei refuses prompting another speech filled with angst and self loathing, saying he would rather Yi-Che die than be forced into being a vampire and claims Sho to be selfish for wanting such a thing. Sho then requests that Kei help him exact revenge on the Yakuza responsible for Shinji’s murder and Kei “reluctently” aggree’s to help.
The two head to the rundown warehouse where they met with the Yakuza and a “dazzling” firefight ensues against Chan's goons. It becomes obvious that Sho doesn't intend on surviving when he asks Kei to promise to watch over his daughter Hana. Predictably enough, Sho fights without regard to his own safety or that of his splended white trench coat, prompting painful and angsty protests from Kei. Finally, the pair meet up with Son, Sho considers him a traitor fro joinig the people who murderd Toshi, and he also seeks reveng for his brother Shinji because of this Sho traps Kei in a shadowy corner of the room by shooting holes in the cheeling drenching the battle ground in sunlight to stop him interfearing in the ensuing showdown of revenge, oooh drama.
Sho and Son battle till each man has only one Bullet left, now what are the chances eh?. The two men decide to have a good old fashiond dule, whith the survivor takeing care of Hana, as they pace away from each other and turn to fire, only one shot is heard as Sho deliberatly doesent fire and is fatealy wounded, as Son is left with the realiseation of his actions.
Meanwhile Chan is betrayed and killed by two of his underlings who then come across Kei stuck in his corner of woe and angst, they two flunkies shoot Kei repeatedly as Kei slumps seemingly dead the two Yakuza turn to walk away, unfortunatly for them Kei has the magical ability to heal super fast when its needed in the story line, and quickly turns to two men into Swiss Chese.
Upon Finding Sho in a clasic protagonist death pose and Son with the smoking gun, Son seems to have repented his actions but still raises his gun to Kei evena though he has no amunition left, Kei meerly shoots Son several times then rushes to his dying pal Sho. During a drama filled death sceen Sho raises a cinematic bloody hand while being cradeld by Kei, all the tension between them is forgotten and Kei is left with the sadnes off loseing his only friend as the lights dim on the sceen.
Once again time skips forward to an 18 yearold Hana unveiling a repainted version of her mother’s origonal mural, Kei like a proud father congratulats her, then promply dissmisses her by sending her off to be schooled abroad. Sho is then sceen standing infront of the repainted mural, unable to face the lonelyness and angst of his existance, he turnd Sho into a vampire, Sho who also couldent live with the woe, the angst and the depression of a vampire refused to let his daughter see him, and had Kei raise her instead fufilling his promise to Sho.
With all lose strings tied off (the film raises many posible plot points but never finishes them) Kei and Sho drive to the beach where the origonal groupe of frinds spent many a happy night takeing group photos, the two life weary blood suckers then comit the ulimate act of melodrama and angst by killing themselvs, then they meet all ther dead friends in the after life at the same beach as friends once again, awwwww.
Conclusion
Now we have the entire movie typed up its time to actually talk about it. Moon Child is a film that is hard to catagorize some might say it’s a Vampire film or a Sci Fi film, or an action film or a crime movie or an emotional film set to show the strife between friends and how they try to over come it, then again it could just be an excuse for fan girls (and fan boys) to drool over Hyde and Gackt on screen together which to be honest seems the most likely. The first part of the film apart from the occasional bady coreographed gunfight and smart remark from Hyde or Gackt is fairly dull, the plot is lose if it exists at all some belive it is the show the friend ship between the two main characters I personaly belive its simply to have Hyde and Gackt on screen together. The action sceens I mention arent really all that actiony, they revolve less around style and coolness and have more lound noise and fire spitting out of guns than anything else, Kei as a vampire of course has super powers and is able to doge bullets and kill bad guys with great ease but one wonders why Kei, an unkillable vampire hardly ever uses his powers for anything but occasionally dodging bullets and hopping from one place to another to look cool while his utterly mortal friends are being shot at from all sides, Anyway, the first hour is taken up with much gunplay, much pouting, manly wrestling on the beach and much gazing into middle distance contemplating the realities of unlife oooh more drama, also there is only about three vampire victims in the whole film how lame is that.
The film suffers from a low budget, which explains the crapy effects in the gun fights, but with massive Asian icons staring in the film you would think that more money would have been raised for it, then again as they are novice actors its not that much of a surprise. In short Moon Child is frankly boring which is a horrible crime considering its supposed to be a Vampire/action/crime movie, you never really care for the characters except for maybe Hyde and Gackt (and that’s manly their fans). Apart from Hyde’s character most of the other cast look silly in this film, Gackt does have one or two flashy outfits but his silly hair makes in look old beyond his years where as the 38 year old Hyde looks like a spry 23 year old. As a professional reviewer I’d have to say that Moon Child fails on so many levels, if you want an out and out feast of violence and blood then I suggest you watch Versus, if its suspense and thought provoking plot then watch Old Boy and if you want crazy undead Japanese rock stars then watch Wild Zero a film as bad as Moon Child but it has more comedy and silly violence. The fact is there are many Asian movies that beat Moon Child in every way possible except one and that is the fact that it has Hyde and Gackt in it, both are stupidly popular and any of their fans would easily look over the poor script, poor action, bad effects and even look over the fact that a romantic relationship between Hyde and Gackt’s characters is never even hinted at. All in all I’d give Moon Child a disappointing two out of ten as a movie, but as I mentioned the film has one wining aspect and that is its lead role’s and as a huge fan of Hyde I’m going to give this an eight out of ten. If you want to see a good Asian move then I strongly advise you look else where, there are countless awesome films from the orient but Moon Child just isn’t one of them, if you are a Hyde or Gackt fan and just want an excuse to see them on film and drool, then by all means watch this film but make sure not to judge all Asian cinema by its poor standards.
- macus